Mehmed Spaho (Serbian Cyrillic: Мехмед Спахо; 13 March 1883 – 29 June 1939) was a Bosnian politician and leader of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization.

His father Hasan was an expert of the Sharia law, and before the Austrian-Hungarian occupation, he was a judge in the Ottoman cities of Jajce, Sofia, Damascus and Cairo.

When the Commercial Chamber was established in Sarajevo in 1910, on its session held on 11 November 1910, Spaho was elected to be its secretary with an annual payment of 6,000 kronas; he started to work on 1 January 1911.

The idea about Yugoslavism was not yet present, for the Bosnian Muslim political elite had not even entertained such thoughts until the final months of World War I.

[3] During the war, Spaho entered a mission of the Council of Nutrition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, led by Governor Stjepan Sarkotić.

On 10 March, the mission was received by the Emperor, Charles I, whom Spaho asked to help to the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the food problem.

Sarkotić's motive to make such telegram occurred after István Tisza, Hungarian Prime Minister visited Sarajevo.

While in Sarajevo, Tisza spoke with the President of Diet of Bosnia, Safvet-beg Bašagić, and Spaho, as with Secretary of the Commercial Chamber, and a lawyer, Dr. Halid Hrasnica.

He also stated that the differences between the religious groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina had faded during the war, and claimed that the majority of population supports the unification within Yugoslavia.

[6] On 3 November 1918, when the first National Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina was formed, Spaho was named Commissioner for Trade, Post and Telegraph.

As a Commissioner, Spaho was very active, especially with helping Bosnian Muslim families that were victims of violence before the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs united with the Kingdom of Serbia.

[6] When the first government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed on 22 December 1918, whose president was Stojan Protić, Spaho was named Minister of Forestry and Mining.

They emphasized their programme on 8 January 1919, advocating democracy, constitutionality, justice and harmony, and moreover, they announced their readiness to cooperate with everyone with the construction of the "unique state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes", on the concept of equality of all three nationalities.

[8] As opposed to the JMO, the political group that gathered around the Jednakost newspaper, the Yugoslav Muslim Democracy (JMD), did not deal with either religious or agrarian questions, but only demanded that the power must be transferred more to the local level; nevertheless, they also supported the Karađorđević dynasty and Belgrade centralism.

All Bosnian Muslim organizations were united within it, except the Jednakost group, which joined Svetozar Pribićević's Yugoslav Democratic Party.

In order to gain their reliance, he promised them the territorial compactness of Bosnia and Herzegovina, instead of its regional self-government, which was advocated by the JMO.

In the letter which was sent by the JMO to Pašić which included the requests for their support to the new constitution, the proposal about the territorial compactness was not even mentioned, but only improvements around the treatment of Bosnian Muslims.

[25] On the evening of 28 June 1939, Spaho departed Sarajevo for Belgrade by train, after receiving an invite from Prince Paul of Yugoslavia.

Spaho arrived by car to the "Srpski kralj" (The Serbian King) hotel, where he stayed when in Belgrade, and sat down at a desk to inspect some letters which had built up in his absence.

One says that, while preparing an outfit for Spaho, Hadžihasanović heard a shout coming from the bathroom, rushing over, only to find him dead by the faucet.

Spaho's daughter Emina specified in March 2013 that he was served poisoned coffee upon leaving the bathroom, dropping almost immediately after his first sip.

[28] On 5 July 1939, Mehmed Sulejmanpašić, a reporter for the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet published a story claiming that Spaho had been poisoned and that his death was not a natural one, arguing that the attitude of Belgrade police chief Dragi Jovanović, who "spent the entire time in the room with the Spaho's body, chasing out anyone who lingered for more than half a minute," was suspicious.

[28] On the occasion of the 130th anniversary of his birth in 2013, his 91-year-old daughter Emina Kadić spoke to the newspaper Oslobođenje about her belief that her father had been poisoned when she was 17.

[29] Kadić added that the Prince saw her father as a nuisance due to his fight for Muslim rights in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and for being against the Cvetković–Maček Agreement, believing it to be an attempt by Serbs and Croats to divide Bosnia, and having it become part of Serbia and Croatia, disappearing from existence.

Kadić said that her brother Zijah went back to Belgrade years later and spoke to the waiter who served their father the coffee that morning.

Kadić described her father as a kind man, who, although spending a lot of time working in Belgrade, would relax in his garden upon returning to Sarajevo.